pflosi wrote:Isn't the "dark tone" mainly the filter filtering out the clock noise?

Partly, but it's also there to cut down on noise buildup. BBD delays are inherently noisy.

A lot of BBD devices don't run at full audio bandwidth, in order to provide a longer delay time. In order to do that, they have to pre-filter to prevent aliasing, in addition to the clock filtering on output. That's another possible source.

Stab,You make a great point. The whole reason that digital samplers were invented is for precisely the reason you state, analog sucks. Now if we look at how suckiness has created some of the greatest music the world has ever known, then you see why everyone wants more analog. Dirt, grime, distortion, noise, all things that we just adore.

So with that said, I would like to say that all of the above examples of analog sampling have some use. The Melotron was the real thing though in terms of actually being a genuine usable analog sample playback device.

So if you want something to store an analog sound in high resolution, you are really going to have to go back to the drawing board and start all over trying to figure out the best medium to store waveforms on that is truly analog, or linear.

Tape sucks, vinyl sucks, BBDs sucks, but we love them all. What other ways can we store a voltage or a representation of a signal that can be converted back into audio? There are not that many ways to do this. Light is not something that we can use because it moves so fast that you can't slow it down. You can modulate light, but what does that do for you? What things move slowly that we can impress and image on, or mecahanically impress a signal onto it's surface, or magnetically impress a signal on it? You might use thermal printers to drop a waveform on a paper loop.

You use a series of transistors to store the analog value for each point in the waveform. Of course, to have any more duration, and to be capable of storing more than one sample, it would need to be the size of, at least, a refrigerator, if not a small room. And you'd probably need the refrigerator's cooling system to keep it from overheating

Ashe37 wrote:You use a series of transistors to store the analog value for each point in the waveform. Of course, to have any more duration, and to be capable of storing more than one sample, it would need to be the size of, at least, a refrigerator, if not a small room. And you'd probably need the refrigerator's cooling system to keep it from overheating

Ashe37 wrote:You use a series of transistors to store the analog value for each point in the waveform. Of course, to have any more duration, and to be capable of storing more than one sample, it would need to be the size of, at least, a refrigerator, if not a small room. And you'd probably need the refrigerator's cooling system to keep it from overheating

A series of transistors which stores the analogue value for each point in the waveform is called RAM. What you're describing here is a digital sampler.